This might be just a misunderstanding of how ssh tunneling works, but here goes:

In my ngirgd.conf file I have the following:

Ports = 6669
Listen = 127.0.0.1

This ngircd server is running on HostA. I've tunneled into it using the following:

wayne@HostB % ssh -N wayne@HostA -L 6669:HostA:6669

I enter my password. Then inside irssi on HostB, I do:

/connect localhost 6669

And I get

Looking up localhost
Connecting to localhost [127.0.0.1] port 6668
Connection to localhost established
Connection lost to localhost

Inside the terminal window where I launched the tunnel, I get:

channel 2: open failed: connect failed: Connection refused

From what I've understood, the ssh tunnel should be connecting HostB:6669 to HostA:6669, so as far as ngirgd is concerned, the connection came from localhost/127.0.0.1. But it appears this is not the case - when I forwarded to port 80 it connected to my server just fine.

Am I misunderstanding something, or is something wrong? And how do I fix it?

1 Answer
1

Your IRC daemon listens to 127.0.0.1:6669on hostb and the host:hostport part of -L port:host:hostpart is relative to the server you connect to. So I guess hostb doesn't resolve to 127.0.0.1 (from hostb), does it? (Thus your command tries to connect to hostb:6669 where no daemon listens.)